Abstract

R136 (HD 38268) is the brightest member of the compact cluster of stars
at the center of the 30 Doradus Nebula, a massive H II region in the
Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). The far-ultraviolet luminosity is
equivalent to at least 1000 ordinary O type stars. Optically, R136 is an
unresolved patch corresponding to a linear extent of about 0.7 pc.
Several components are known to be present, of which R136a is the
brightest. A quantitative description of the optical spectrum of R136a
has not been available in the literature. The present investigation is
concerned with the analysis of spectrograms in the visible region. It is
found that the optical spectrum of R136a shows broad but rather weak
emission lines of ions which are frequently seen in early WN-type stars.
The centroid of H-alpha is displaced by approximately 100 km/s redward
of the nebular H-alpha emission. The Balmer series is visible, in
absorption, up to H11.

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